I didn’t mean banning, just people thinking “They won’t help me, no point posting” or “Holy mackerel they’re going to call 911 on me and get me locked up” or “I would ask LW for help, but I can’t get over fretting about the reaction”.
A couple mental illness support groups I know of ban talking about planned suicides (and self-injury), mostly to avoid triggering potentially suicidal (resp. self-injurious) people. Since they point to emergency resources a lot and support non-acutely suicidal people, it doesn’t seem to be very bad, but I can’t observe the consequences.
Are these claims research-based?
The first is anecdotal. I’ve heard a lot of negative reports and very few positive ones, but there may be selection bias. Maybe hotlines are for people who are desperate to talk to anyone, so people who’d talk to me don’t benefit nearly as much.
The second… is probably wrong, come to think of it. A lot of people shriek “Never spill the beans about someone being suicidal without their consent, it could get them into arbitrary amounts of trouble, and an even suckier life won’t make them less suicidal”, but even more people shriek “Call 911 NAO” and the main evidence that the former know what they’re talking about is that they have much more personal experience.
I didn’t mean banning, just people thinking “They won’t help me, no point posting” or “Holy mackerel they’re going to call 911 on me and get me locked up” or “I would ask LW for help, but I can’t get over fretting about the reaction”.
A couple mental illness support groups I know of ban talking about planned suicides (and self-injury), mostly to avoid triggering potentially suicidal (resp. self-injurious) people. Since they point to emergency resources a lot and support non-acutely suicidal people, it doesn’t seem to be very bad, but I can’t observe the consequences.
The first is anecdotal. I’ve heard a lot of negative reports and very few positive ones, but there may be selection bias. Maybe hotlines are for people who are desperate to talk to anyone, so people who’d talk to me don’t benefit nearly as much.
The second… is probably wrong, come to think of it. A lot of people shriek “Never spill the beans about someone being suicidal without their consent, it could get them into arbitrary amounts of trouble, and an even suckier life won’t make them less suicidal”, but even more people shriek “Call 911 NAO” and the main evidence that the former know what they’re talking about is that they have much more personal experience.